Ch. 23: Mutagens
Sabrina wasn’t expecting the beautiful green slime girl, but there she was with Sloan and Alice. “Nice to meet you,” Sabrina began, a little off-center. “I’m Sabrina. Is it true that you went into Sloan’a pod voluntarily?”
“Of course,” Blossom said, with soft confidence. “Who wouldn’t, with the big-dick energy she was throwing around?”
Sloan and Blossom shared a look and a smile, and Sloan said, “told ya so. Speaking of which… I don’t think I want to wear your dick out in the dungeon anymore. You do you, but I don’t really like it. I’ll take the cum-bonus but leave the HP buff.”
“Oh, okay. That’s totally cool, but won’t you need the extra health?”
“We were just going over the loot, and the orcs dropped a lot of Vulnerability jellies. Alice suggested that I should just take them all, there’s enough that I should be able to take two whole levels in Vulnerability and circumvent the need for it.”
Sabrina looked to Jade, who seemed okay with it, and said, “good idea. Who should wear the Living Dildo, then?”
Alice answered, “Jade, definitely. I’ll need to do a full count of what you guys looted, but there should be more than enough Sensation jellies for you to take a level in it. Since your class has a scouting component, I’m thinking you’ll flit around the battlefield keeping an eye on who needs healing, always keeping in mental contact with Jade, our healer. Jade, then, will have enough HP to be able to safely get in and out of the action for support.”
Jade looked a little too excited about getting to wear the Living Dildo all the time. “I’m in,” Jade announced giddily.
“Yeah, agreed,” Sabrina affirmed. “It’s a smart plan. Good strategizing.”
Red looked puzzled, and interjected, “I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job, but aren’t you kinda leaving cards on the table? If being a damage-sponge is the idea, shouldn’t Sloan also take some orc mutagens?” Seeing the blank looks, Red explained, “you know, since orcs are tough as shit? It’s like extra armor built right in.”
Being cautious not to sound too ignorant, Sabrina said, “but… I can only make Lust-based mutations. Plus, my crafting table is back at our apartment.”
“So? Make one big concoction with all the Orc essence you have. That’ll put some kind of effect on all of her sexy parts and give her enough of an orc-form alignment that most of her body should get the increased durability.”
“Orc-form alignment?”
“Duh-doy! Did you literally just mutate your cunt into mine and call it a day with learning your subclass?”
“Um… kinda?”
Red sighed. “Whatever. I’ll help. That counter has a bunch of compartments that fold out for each of your subclasses. Safe rooms are tailored to the specific party that it exists for, so you’ll all be covered.”
“What do you mean by exists for?” Sabrina asked.
“What do you think I mean? Many aspects of the dungeon are in a kind of quantum uncertainty. If anyone unaffiliated with your party wanders down here, the door to your safe room will just be a wall. Even if they drilled through it somehow, and stood exactly where we are, they wouldn’t exist in the same plane as us. This whole room exists only for your benefit.”
“How do you know all of this?” Jade asked.
“Don’t worry about,” Red said, dodging the question.
“Will I be green?” Sloan asked.
“Huh?”
“Will I be green?” She repeated. “You’re gonna mutate me into an orc or whatever. Will I be green? I don’t wanna look like one of them.”
“No. That big of a transformation is beyond a few mutagens. You’ll pick up some traits, but you’ll still be human. Although if you wanna be green, I think we could distill a pigment modifier out of some slime essence.”
“What would orc mutations do, then?”
“Orcs are big and tough. You’ll probably get bulked up glutes and thighs, extra sexual stamina, and vaginal muscles that can bend steel.”
Sloan perked up a bit. “I’m in.”
First things first, Sabrina and Sloan popped some jellies. After Sloan popped hers enough for a level, she looked frustrated. With hesitance, she announced, “you guys might’ve noticed I was sort of moody earlier. Blossom helped me with that. She’s a good listener. I quit the roller derby team today, and won’t be showing up for any fights. I have magical upgrades now, so it’s not exactly fair for me to compete. When that green bitch laid me out, I was worried. I told myself that I wasn’t any good at this, and after giving up sports, I’d have to give this up, too— and then I’d have nothing. I also told myself that I’d let the derby girls down, and I was going to let you guys down, too.”
“Oh my god, Sloan, I had no idea,” Sabrina blurted out, amongst a chorus of reassurances. “I should have thought about the consequences before just giving you magic without even asking.”
Sloan raised raised her hands casually in front of her chest, bringing abrupt silence. “You don’t need to worry about it. I’m fine, I promise. I’ve got my own issues. I’m an eldest daughter with shithead older brothers, and four younger siblings that I basically raised on my own. The only way I was ever given any praise was by making myself useful. Whatever. I don’t need to get into all of that right now. There’s something I wanted to bring up with you, though, Sabrina.”
“Anything.”
“I wanna float an invite to my roller derby team to bring them in on this. I want to be honest with them about why I dropped out, and this seems like the only way. You found this place, so I wanted to let you know.”
Sabrina was initially hit with shock. Her first thought was, “no, you can’t do that. Too many people will spoil this.” After a moment though, she was appalled at her own selfishness. This dungeon was the kind of gift that only got better the more people you gave it away to. Just in a couple of days, she’d gone from poking around on her own to being a formidable force. Not only that, but she now had a sort of family. Inducting more people into this strange secret could grow her family into a whole community. “Oh god, am I a cult leader?”
“That’s a wonderful idea,” Sabrina told her. “And… thank you for opening up to me— to us.”
Sloan then continued popping jellies until she’d gained another level in vulnerability. Once she did, she had a puzzled look, rather than the anxious look that usually preceded the confessions that Vulnerability necessitated. “I have a new weakness, and not one of those bullshit ones where you get an extra ticklish spot. I’m weak to acid damage.”
“Like a troll?” Alice asked, which Sloan ignored. It was important to know that Vulnerability could have this effect. It may be an issue. For now, they could only table the issue.
Sabrina popped her jellies and gained a level in sensation. There were no perks to buy, so with Sabrina’s permission, all of the points were funneled into bolstering her senses. This increase to her senses crossed an interesting threshold. New colors that had been creeping into her sight from previous levels were pushed over the edge. She could now clearly see multiple distinct colors deep into the ultraviolet and infrared ends of the spectrum. Not only that, but the distinct shades and hues she could discern between those two were increased several times over. No longer were colors like purple and yellow just her brain filling in the blanks when the cones in her eyes got incomplete signals.
An interesting side effect of this, as she noticed when she looked at Jade, was that humans now appeared to have stripes. She made the connection to something she would have scarcely remembered before her brain got supercharged. “Blaschko’s lines,” Sabrina muttered.
“Huh?” Jade asked.
“You have stripes— we all do. They’re invisible, except for in people with certain skin conditions. I can see them now, though. It’s kind of trippy.” Interestingly, Red and Spoons didn’t have these stripes at all. They weren’t human, though, so it wasn’t overly surprising.
The next order of business was to hit the mutagen table. After fiddling with the counter a bit, a panel opened up to allow the familiar green vat to elevate up, then closed beneath it. Interacting with it, the mental interface opened, showing menus.
“Lemme take a look,” Red requested, sitting on the counter.
>Permit familiar (Red) to join crafting? (Y/N)
>Y
Red was now brought in to Sabrina’s holographic view. She looked around at the available ingredients and recipes. “Shit, you really suck at this. Let’s make a few things to level you up, just so we don’t give her a weak-ass mutagen.” Red then tossed together some mixes of imp and goblin essences, presumably because there were a lot of them. She crafted three mutagens absentmindedly. It seemed like a waste of Lust jellies to Sabrina, but they were pretty easy to come by.
After the third was crafted, a prompt appeared.
>Biohacker has reached lvll 2! New recipes unlocked. Mutagen effects increased. You may now obtain perk essences by completing challenges. Begin a challenge by choosing one of your Lust perks, or obtaining permission to replicate an ally’s Lust perk. At lvl 2, replicated perks have diminished effectiveness. Replicated perks cannot be used to increase a perk’s lvl.
“Cool,” Sabrina whispered to herself. “I was wondering how I was supposed to get those.”
“Yeah, yeah. It’s all so new and interesting— whatever. So check this out. You’ve got three orc essences, including one potent one from the leader. We’re gonna mix them all together. Then let’s toss in two of these blue slime essences. Those are just to boost the chances of runaway mutations. Basically, instead of selecting for a few specific mutations, this gives a lot more of them but they’re totally random. We’re trying to maximize coverage, though, so she can get increased durability. Wow, fuck— you’ve got a few monstrosity essences? Let’s save those for later. Alrighty, now just dump in ten Lust jellies, plus a Vigor and a Vulnerability. Aaaaand done. That’s how you do it.”
The ghostly green mutagen that resulted was a mashed together sculpture of muscular body parts. It didn’t look particularly safe, but Red seemed to know a lot more about this than Sabrina. She waved over Sloan, who was standing nearby.
Sloan winced at the look of it. “Is it safe?”
Red held out and hand and tilted it from side to side like a scale. “-ish. It’ll make you tough as shit, I’ll guarantee that much.”
Sloan gave a befuddled look, but reluctantly took the mutagen and activated it.
>Comprehensive body mutations gained! Runaway mutagenic effects have occurred!
>Areola radius increased by 10%.
>Areola skin remains smooth even while nipples are erect.
>Nipples permanently erect.
>Metallic nipple-studs gained. Despite appearing to be jewelry, they are part of your anatomy and have sensitive nerve endings.
>Breast fullness and perkiness moderately increased.
>Lip fullness increased by 14%.
>Gag-reflex eliminated.
>Size and sharpness of canine teeth slightly increased.
>Size and visible muscle-mass of butt significantly increased.
>Size and visible muscle-mass of legs significantly increased.
>Size and sensitivity of clitoris slightly increased.
>Vaginal grip strength increased by a factor of 5.
>Vaginal depth doubled.
>Hand/finger strength significantly increased.
>Size of hands slightly increased.
>Skin durability significantly increased.
>Freckle quantity moderately increased.
>Head-hair density and arousal-response to having hair pulled moderately increased.
>Arousal response to being bitten moderately increased.
>Arousal response to being slapped/spanked moderately increased.
>Arousal response to rough sex moderately increased.
>Scent modulated. You’ve gained a pleasant but instinctively dominant musk. This musk is arousing to sexually submissive people.
>Orc-form alignment has reached maximum for your current level and species.
Sabrina watched as her already big and tough looking friend mutated to be even more so. Her legs and butt became even bigger and stronger. Her lips plumped slightly and slight fangs showed behind them. Even her smell seemed tough, yet sexy. There also were changes that didn’t do much to make her seem tougher, like the extra freckles or perkier boobs. All in all, though, it was fitting— a natural progression of Sloan.
Sloan looked down and took it all in. She smirked, looking herself over. “Alright, little devil. You got lucky this time. If you ever make changes I’m not okay with, I’ll squash your head between my legs until it kills you.”
In unison, Red, Jade, Sabrina, and Alice all said, “I’ve always wanted to die that way.” When they realized they managed a four-way jinx, they all looked to each-other and laughed.